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All posts for the month December, 2008

I had a major breakthrough (I think) regarding a recurring dream that’s been bugging me for the longest time. This recurring dream comes in various forms and guises, but the theme is always the same: my life is always threatened by something that is randomly deadly, but somehow finds its way, specifically to me. For instance, I see a plane in the sky that’s about to crash, and of all the places that it would fall, it goes straight to where I run. It doesn’t matter which shelter I seek safety under, the plane will fall THERE. Or the hotel I’m in is suddenly overrun by terrorists, and out of the hundreds of rooms in the frooking hotel, they enter mine. Or this giant snake that starts eating people in the U.P. Sunken Garden suddenly focuses on me, even if I were on the top floor of a nearby building. It has all those people to eat, but it sees ME, and wants to eat ME. The latest version of this dream, I recounted while I was on air with Delle. I was in the old house where I grew up in, and there was word that a wolf was on the prowl. I ran up to my old room, my inner sanctum, locked the doors, jammed the heaviest furniture against it, and crouched in the corner farthest from the door. The light was off the whole time, and as I shivered in my dark corner in fear, I suddenly felt a presence. As I looked to my left, I realized the wolf was right next to me, staring straight at me with its beady red eyes. The end of all these dreams is my obvious death, but the dreams are always cut before the actual death (since I don’t think we can die in our dreams; at least I don’t). Delle had many insights on what the dreams could mean. Many of her insights actually make a lot of sense, but she asked me to do one thing: to face the MONSTER, whatever form it takes the next time around.

Delle instructed that the next time I get this type of dream, to will myself to face the threat head on. I argued that I wouldn’t “know” that I’m dreaming, because I’d be awake if I “knew” I was in a dream. Delle said it’s possible, and that should I wake in the middle of the dream, to will myself to come back to the dream to face the threat. I thought about it for about 5 minutes, then like many of my thoughts, it got filed somewhere in the back of my head for future reference, oftentimes buried forever in the muck and morass of my mind.

Then, just last night, it happened. It was “that kind of dream”. In it, I was in a forest with my sister and brother. Okay fine, don’t laugh. In the dream, my sister was Beyonce, and my brother was Stifler in “American Pie”. We were riding in a buggy, it hit a fallen log, and we all dived headfirst into a puddle of mud. When we got up, we saw from afar, that the ruckus we created caught the attention of a huge grizzly bear. I started muttering under my breath, “A bear, a bear, a bear…” and started running towards a nearby house, with my siblings, Beyonce and Stifler, not far behind me. By the time we reached the house the grizzly was practically nipping at our heels! He was so big and so fast that we had that sickening feeling at the pit of our stomachs that there was NO WAY that we could outrun him, and that it’s just a matter of time before we’re dead. A few seconds later I was on the floor, on my back, with the grizzly standing on its hind legs, standing right above me, with his white teeth bared, growling menacingly. The overwhelming feeling was helplessness; that there was absolutely NOTHING I could do, and that I was completely POWERLESS to change the outcome. I braced myself for the impact, as the ursine giant lunged downward towards me…

End of dream.

I didn’t wake up, at least I don’t remember waking up, but I swear I felt myself “rewind” the dream, with the distinct purpose of changing the outcome. It was almost as if I was saying, “This is MY dream, dammit, and what I say goes!” So I go back to the part where I was on the floor and the bear was standing above me. Instead of just laying there awaiting my doom, suddenly I discover air vents nearby which connected the different floors of the house. So with inhuman speed, I leapt towards the nearest vent and slid down, to the next lower floor. Then I found another vent leading to another floor, and another vent, and so on, until I found myself on the ground floor, far away from the reaches of the angry bear (Presto, suddenly the house was multi-level!). Then my sister Beyonce appears out of nowhere, shaken but alive, as she falls into my arms crying, while Stifler waves from afar (apparently he got out much earlier than me or Beyonce).

But that’s beside the point. The point is, for the first time since this type of dream started recurring, I faced the monster that always got me. For the first time, I stood up to something that I always felt powerless against. For the first time, I LIVED. Okay, I don’t really know if all this cockamamie mumbo-jumbo means anything, but it was a breakthrough nevertheless. It was the dream that beat the odds. This augurs well coming at the end of the year, with the new one just around the corner. Whatever it means, if ever it even means anything, it feels good. It feels like the ending of “Jaws”, when they killed the shark. Suddenly, it feels safe to swim at the beach again. At least that’s what I’ll choose to think. Hopefully I’ll have as much cojones to face 2009 as I did when I faced that grizzly, and hopefully, I’ll beat the odds as well in the waking world.

Desperation is a powerful word. A lot of us flinch when we hear the word, and bristle when it is used to describe us. It seems pathetic to be called desperate, but we’ve all had our moments. I definitely had mine, especially when it came to the arena of love. When I was new to the game, I did stuff that I cringe now, just thinking about it.

July 28, 2008 → The Top Ten Examples Of Desperation

Jose de vengenge – If you always go to a doctor for a medical checkup because that’s the only time you get to be naked with, & touched by another person. And you don’t even care whether the doctor is male or female.

KiD BuKid – If you say stuff like, “Virgin or not…here I come!!!”

Barbiebeng/Antivola – You’re desperate to lose weight if you will drink any pill or medicine, regardless of the health risks, including the pills that allegedly contain intestinal worm eggs, that will guarantee weight loss once the worms hatch and start siphoning off the nutrients in your body.

ShenZumi/Barbiebeng – My friend joined her crush’s congregation, just so she could be closer to him. She attended that church regularly until her hopes crashed, when the guy got engaged to a non-member of that church. Now she’s thinking about doing yoga instead, for “inner peace”.

Barbiebeng – I’ve heard of some people who cut off a limb or take out an eye just so they can ask for money in the streets.

Hazelnut – When he was the one who cheated on you, yet you are the one who asks forgiveness for your shortcomings as a girlfriend and begs him for a 2nd chance.

Ralph – I find people who join speed dating desperate.

Pink Mist – I had a classmate in our school’s theater club, a real artista. She said she used to pretend to have nightmares, scream at the top of her lungs, in the middle of the night, and get a kick out of her dad or everyone else rushing into her room to check on her and calm her down.

Coachdanny – Even during a stormy day I would go out to buy cigarettes if I ran out. If I really can’t go out, I’d smoke the cigerettes in my ash tray.

Cheyenne – Desperate to go home because he’s so homesick and stressed, someone from our village who was working in an airport in the Middle East, hid inside the baggage compartment of a jumbo jet bound for Manila wearing only his soiled cover-all uniform. And with him was only a liter of mineral water and biscuits!

SC – If you put your 0wn number 0n the c0mf0rt room doors and bus seats.

Mockbuster – I was so desperate to receive flowers from my then boyfriend,that I bought myself a bouquet and psyched myself that it came from him.

Vi – I did my best to win my mom’s attention so I ran away from home. Unfortunately for me, she didn’t care!

Espeks – A highschool friend went to the U.S. and when he went back, he tried to be cool by imitating an American accent to which he failed misserably. Then he also said Christina Aguilera was her ex back in US.

SPY Shadow – In a row of carinderia inside a Manila wet market, desperate for customers to eat in their place, tinderas grab male passersby and even rub their boobs to lure them to eat!

Dru – If you go to the oblation run just to see naked men. Besides, the oblation run is like the U.S. government – It’s all BUSH!

I’ve always thought that “Get Together” is one of Madonna’s most underrated songs. From the “Confessions On The Dance Floor” album, it was never really a big hit on any of the charts, except maybe the dance charts. It’s one of her better written songs, but I guess since she’s not really hip to the younger crowd, and dance isn’t really that big in the U.S., it was expectedy overlooked. But I found a really, REALLY nice version of the song, by one of the many Youtube artists making their own acoustic versions of different songs. Well, his name is Rudi Douglas, and listening to his version almost feels like he’s singing a totally different song. It gives the song an altogether different soul. Give it a listen.

As you can see, having work, which translates to having nothing to do, on one of the longest holidays in recent memory, is taking its toll on me. I’m just online, watching videos and surfing the net. It would’ve been nice to have gone somewhere for the 11-day holiday, but, what’s the point in struggling with a battle that’s already been lost. Hehehe…bitter ba?

It’s funny. Remember my 2 impassioned posts about my noisy neighbors? Those posts were some of the most viewed and most commented since I started blogging! Everyone had an opinion about it and everyone had something to say about it, from so many different angles. Well I guess it’s time for an update. Why post about this on Christmas Eve? Read on. Things haven’t really changed since I last posted about this. The noise level is still high: the talking still full volume, the singing still “operatic”, the screaming, the shouting, the everything. But a couple of weeks ago, there came a shift, of seismographic proportions.

Okay, I exaggerate. But I tell you, it was quite unexpected. One night, a couple of weeks ago, as I came home, I suddenly see their patriarch at our front door. He was this elder gentleman who walked with a cane, and he was at our front gate, and even from afar, I could already hear his stentorian baritone booming from a distance! My hackles were instantly raised, and I braced myself for fight, and I will not back down, not from this fight! In my head, I was like, “The nerve of him to charge to our front door, shouting at our yaya! I don’t care what his complaint is, after what we’ve endured, he simply has NO right!” So I parked the car and rushed down to see what the whole commotion was all about! As I charged forward, I got bewildered because amid the shouting, I swore I heard something that sounded vaguely like laughter. My walk slowed down considerably, my gait slowing down as my brain speeded up, trying to catch up, to what was actually happening. Then I realized, the old man was with their yaya, who was carrying a large dish. I may be slow, but I’m not stupid, so I then put 2 and 2 together and realized a more accurate interpretation of the events. Then, when the man saw me, he then tried to explain in English that his wife cooked a traditional Korean dish, and that he wanted to bring some over for us to try. I also realized that even as he was saying all this with a big smile, he was really talking decibels louder than I would even if I were raving mad! He obviously isn’t angry, he just sounds it. Apparently, the old man went to the house to bridge whatever gap, or more accurately, whatever chasm was rending the two households apart. I was rather stunned by the gesture, and all I could do was smile back and give my thanks. They quickly retreated back to their house, and that was that.

Then, a couple of days ago, they sent over a box of Krispy Kreme donuts as a Christmas token. And in return, I bought a box of my favorite sweets, Bearded Papa cream puffs, then had them sent over just a couple of minutes ago.

Like I said, despite the warming of relations between the warring clans (and cultures), nothing has changed, really. I still have to put on some music at night just to drown out their late-night noise, they still scream and shout (at least to me it sounds like screaming and shouting) even as they’re just talking at the dinner table, they still park badly on the curb, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But I guess the point in all this, is this: What a world of difference a gesture of kindness makes. The dad bringing over some food doesn’t make the noise level any lower, it doesn’t make the shrieking any more tolerable, but it makes the source of all that noise a little bit more of what they actually are: human. Suddenly they’re no longer horned demons from another world, who’ve come to annoy us till we perish, deaf; they’re just like us, albeit much noisier, but they’re human beings, not monsters. I really appreciated what the old man did. It was very simple, but it sent a very clear message. That they mean no harm, and they’d do in whatever capacity, what it takes to repair any damage in the relations, without really promising anything in return.

So now, when the kids start screaming at each other at the top of their lungs in the dead of the night, instead of cursing them to the ninth circle of hell, I just write it off as, “kids will be kids.” I posted this on Christmas Eve because I think this is a good example of what Christmas can be. As much as I tried not to, I’ve been hating on the whole Christmas thing, this year being the year I saw the dark side of human nature the MOST. So I have a rather bleak view of humanity in general, coming into the season. So it’s nice to see, in whatever amount, that kindness still exists in the world. I’ll take it anywhere I can get it. So even if there are a hundred haters who would salivate at the thought of burning you at the stake, every now and then you’ll come across an elder Korean guy who would bring a warm home-cooked meal to your doorstep. It’s a sub-atomic glimmer of hope, but I’ll take it. It just drips irony that I should find hope in human nature in, of all places: my sworn enemy’s household.

So to Mr. opera singer with noisy kids, thank you. And Merry Christmas to you and your (noisy) family!

What do you do if you catch someone’s S.O. cheating? Do you tell? Is it none of your business? My call on that depends on how close you are to the person. If it’s your sister, or your barkada, or a close relative, then I think you have every right to squeal since it’s your duty to protect those you love fiercely. But if they’re say, officemates, or acquaintances, I’d rather stay away because it’s not for me to intrude into relationships I know very little about.

July 25, 2008 → The Top Ten Things To Say To Someone’s S.O. If You Catch Them Cheating

Well, as some of you might have heard this morning, Delle will be on leave until the first week of January. She’ll be on a 2-week leave, so I’ll be going solo for the next couple of weeks, well, kinda solo, because Monster jock and ETC host Gino Quillamor (or GQ as he is fondly called) was kind enough to agree to accompany me on the show while Delle is gone. So it’ll be Chico and Gino on the Morning Rush! This morning was quite unexpected when there was a last minute swap in skeds, so I was surprised to find Igi Guerrero as my co-host this morning! It was a blast boarding with him, because it was like unleashing two pathological weirdos on an unsuspecting public. We even christened the team-up as “Chigi”. It was the first ever time we got to board together. So tomorrow until January 6 or 7, I’m not really sure, it will be a G-Spot-infused Morning Rush! Geek alert!

By the way, I was thinking, since Gino and I haven’t really boarded together before, and we don’t really know exactly what we’ll talk about, I thought of doing, as our first Top Ten topic, “The Top Ten ‘Top Ten Topics’ for Chico and Gino”. Hehehe…so think of possible topics you’d think we can do? And join us tomorrow!